Lots of jobs on offer in our region

Ged Taylor continues his tirade against the Conservative Government (October 3) when responding to Bob Francis’ earlier letter.

Ged attacks his usual target of zero-hour contracts. He should read the Echo on Wednesdays. Each week they show there are over 3,000 jobs in our region. The piece then goes on to list hundreds of local jobs, all with decent salaries.

The ONS reported recently that there was around 3% of the workforce on zero-hour contracts as follows: “The latest data (October to December 2017) show that 901,000 people were employed on a zero hours contract, around 2.8% of the total number of employed people”. A look at the charity Full Fact web page shows 68% of people on these contracts say they don’t want more hours. Other reports put this figure higher.

Ged then turns his attention to student debt. He should take note that it was the 1998 Labour Government that introduced student fees and despite promises not to increase them these were trebled in 2003 under Labour. I’m sure the news released on October 16 will cheer him up. Wages have risen by 3.1%, this is ahead of inflation at 2.5%. He will also be cheered by the news that unemployment fell by 47,000 in the last three months to August.